A new beginning

By Herman Lightsey

The world has changed since March when a new team of leaders was elected and agreed to serve.

We have had to learn “new techniques” and how to use technology to continue to communicate with our loved ones, fellow workers, and fellow Christians.

God told the world to pause, slow up and stop to figure out what is important. The world will never be the way it was. The “old normal” is gone.

I hope that you and your families are all well and are working your way into a new normal. I pray this new normal is a remembrance of what we have experienced in the past few months and that we will take the good things forward and leave those unnecessary and destructive things of the past––God’s new normal!

The good news is that we have discovered new ways to reach more people for Christ through modern technology. I am excited about the new opportunities to disciple men and their families. I am excited about the guys who said “yes” to the call to be leaders. I urge you as men of the church to also step up and support these leaders as they try to discern the will of God for our men and their families.

As a result of this pandemic we face a changing UMC in a changed world.

Your mission (if you choose to accept it) is to position this ministry to disciple men and their families no matter where they attend church or if they do not currently attend a church. This ministry is not about where men and their families go to church; this ministry is about where men and their families will spend eternity.

This ministry to men is built on a three-legged stool: the NACP, the UM Men Foundation and the General Commission on UM Men. If they are not working in sync, the ministry will fail.

Herman Lightsey, president elect

The National Association of Conference Presidents

hblightsey@gmail.com